The dark side of the force is coming…

Three Sith lords duelled across several Vancouver Island locations in July for the right to serve a mysterious Sith known only as the Dark Lord, and 21-year-old director Quinton Foote has the footage to prove it.

“(The film is looking) really good, beyond all my expectations,” the aspiring filmmaker said. “Overall I couldn’t be (more) happy with how it’s going.”

His Star Wars fan film There Can Only Be Two, references a quote from Sith lord Darth Bane, the character who created the rule of two. One master to embody the power of the dark side, and one apprentice to crave it. Written by Foote over eight months, the 20-minute short follows three Sith dropped onto a mysterious planet and forced to duel for the right to be the lone apprentice.

“Fans can expect (the themes) to relate to their life,” the Nanaimo resident said. “But one that offers intense dialogue with riveting and exciting duels and dramatic endings.”

Using lightsaber hilts screwed into white plastic blades, and many hand-built costumes from fabrics and pieces collected from Value Village and online, the team spent approximately $1,000 of their own money to fund the film. Hundreds of hours of sweat equity to build the Star Wars universe in Cathedral Grove, Nanaimo and Comox. He hopes to win a Telus Storyhive grant to turn the short into a web series. TCOBT will be released on YouTube by the end of the year.

“It’s really important to me to give people a reality to go live in somewhere new, exciting, full of adventure,” Foote said. “The best part of everything so far is me finding my passion. I can’t pick one thing over another it has been amazing… I found a passion in writing and casting calls and costumes and now with editing. It has been so much fun.”

With a sparse team of seven, well below the dozens of cast and crew often present on independent films and the hundreds on Hollywood films, Foote said the film was a labour of love. He hopes the fan film ultimately offers viewers an opportunity to step away from reality, and travel to a galaxy far, far away.

“For audiences my main goal is to give people (something) to watch at the end of a hard day forget their problems and enjoy a short film made by people passionate about it,” he said. “It’s my main goal in general to give people something to make them happy.”